


Harbinger

by Kallahan



Series: The Chronicler's Tales [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25770970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kallahan/pseuds/Kallahan
Summary: The tale of the Harbinger, an Exo guardian by the name of Arsenic-12, as it was recorded by the Chronicler.
Series: The Chronicler's Tales [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1869529
Kudos: 1





	Harbinger

Exos are tricky for ghosts, they are risen how they are found. A ghost that wanders upon an Exo that can be risen might find them to be a bit worse for wear, but Bray tech is difficult to work with. Simple cosmetic damage is somewhat simple to fix, but hardly anything on the body of an Exo is purely cosmetic. Even the metal plating is intricately attached with haptic-sensory technology as complex as the human nervous system, if not more. Trust me when I say that if one of those wires ends up crossed, you will know it. It is for this reason that Exos remain the only guardians that can be risen still in a state of varying disrepair. It is with this knowledge that long ago Arsenic-12 came to the conclusion that he must be broken. 

Since his resurrection Arsenic has felt excitement only once in his life. For a long time he believed he was incapable. He thought that maybe he had been a different model of Exo, or that he was raised without whatever microchip or circuitry Exos were equipped with to feel that tinge of exhilaration he sees within his fellow risen. Other guardians described it as the perfect mix of fear and bliss, and he didn’t really comprehend how such things could coexist. Not until he was in fireteam Rivensbane. Facing that Ahamkara lit a spark in the Exo’s eyes, a momentary pulse through his chest. Like an electric heart giving off its first weak beat.

But the time in fireteam Rivensbane came to end alongside its namesake, and it was long passed. The weeks that followed he fought the curse back, chasing that feeling again. But day after day he collapsed exhausted onto the same ruined Awoken monuments, looking at his gloves stained black with taken cosmoplasm just to find his hands empty of what he sought. So he left, and took his search through the system. 

He forged his own Thorn among the Shadows of Yor, wandered the penumbral bowels of the Leviathan, and raided the ruins of the old city, yet felt the same flat void in his chest through it all. The danger was there, the darkness was there, but it wasn’t enough. Eventually he was left with nothing more to chase. He returned to the shore and kicked up dust on the Spider’s doorstep once again.

On a routine bounty weeks later, he tracked down a Wizard that escaped the Prison of Elders months before to a small hive colony on Titan. He was supposed to dispatch it, and then find the hunter who claimed to have killed it months ago and take back the bounty reward by force. You don’t get to just cross the Spider after all. 

A salvaged black armory blade in hand Arsenic stepped in their lair and cut down the thrall one by one as they charged, but then the oddest thing happened. One didn’t charge, not immediately. It stood in the doorway of the rig they’d dug their nest into, and writhing red translucent tendrils trailed off its body and into the air like cold breath. Instinctively he tossed forward a vortex of swirling void light, and where any other thrall would have been broken apart and scattered into axioms, it pushed through, the void sparking at its carapace like firecrackers. He knew immediately, this was it. This was something that could make his electric heart beat. 

All at once they leapt at each other and fought tooth and claw. Its chitin was hard like titanium, and trying to cut through its body was like trying to cut through solid rock with a butter-knife, but Arsenic was undeterred. 

Eventually he crushed its skull into bone splinters beneath his boot, winning against the shockingly resilient foe by the skin of his teeth. His eyes sparked a bright blue, his body pulsed and whirred with exhilaration. He rushed to find the Wizard next, before his heartbeat could stop, but eventually he was going to need to find where these things came from . That’s what led him to the moon.

Arsenic-12 became notorious on the lunar surface, hunting roaming nightmares of dreams he’s never seen, laughing as he beat them apart with overwhelming force and all the light he could muster. When there were none to be found roaming, he could be found waiting by the Alters of Sorrow with his blade in hand and dreambane charms cast aside. He would lock eyes with hive minions as they crept towards the platforms, as if giving them permission to approach and conjure darkness. 

Though he waged his war against the coming dark with joy, it was not enough. He had become drunk on that feeling, the feeling of life. He needed that feeling to be louder, and so he delved into the Pit. It held a silence, one that always precedes the hellish wails of the hive. In that silence, he thrived. And when their screams came roaring from below, he silenced them again.

He emerged from that pit, the chains and scrap metal of his armor all stained crimson, a hive totem symbol carved into his shoulder plate like a trophy, and with the means to make a weapon I have not seen the likes of before or since. Guardians say they find him unsettling, I’ve even seen Shadows of Yor turn the other way when they see him coming. In the tower I hear them whisper rumors and stories about him, how they heard he doesn’t feel emotion, that the scarlet thorn on his hip is darker than they could make. They argue over whether he’s the next Yor. Those who say he’s not hope they’re right, and those who say he is fear they might be right. But they don’t know Arsenic.

Arsenic-12 was never broken. I was there when he rose, I was there when he faced Riven alongside us, and I was there when he went into the pit. He has not changed, facing the darkness has simply brought him to life. Once he was just a guardian, but now he is a Harbinger of what’s to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments allowed
> 
> Critiques welcome
> 
> Validation desired


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